Step-In Closet

October 29, 2018

“I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!!!”…said the white rabbit…and says me. I didn’t make the link-up deadline for the One Room Challenge this past week because I was teaching a two-year old how to use the bathroom properly BUT never fear, I’m still in it and I intend to finish the kids room before the big reveal day – November 8th! I started painting their rug a couple of days ago and I’ve got one other little thing to iron down (literally) and then it’s finito!

Week four saw me in their closet. I put up a whole Instagram story about their closet situation and a couple of things I did to make it better a few weeks ago (and didn’t save it because I just am not that on top of things) but then didn’t go in again. Great except when I left off, there were a couple of big bins and bags full of clothes right when you walk in that needed to go. Let me explain from the top though, in case you missed the story.

This house has decent-sized closets – they’re pretty long inside but they have regular, doorway-sized entries so almost all of the usuable rod space is behind a wall. It’s not ideal when you have four kids in a room and need access to all of their clothes regularly.

Here’s what their closet looked like shortly after we moved in:There was a hanging rod in there but we took it out and hung it in my closet as a second rod so I could get more organization. Then, we set up that closet organizer (it’s this one that I found at Dirt Cheap…here’s a similar one*) and it seemed like a great idea at first because it’s got double rods on one side and shelves on the other; perfect to hold all of the kids stuff and keep it organized. But then we realized that half of it would be behind the wall and, while still accessible, a big pain.

Then, one day not too long ago, I stumbled upon this closet makeover Amy cranked out. And you know what it is? Genius. That’s what. Her hubby’s closet has a wider doorway than that of our kids’ but it’s the idea that counts. I couldn’t copy it fast enough.

Fast forward and now we’ve got two rods on the right, shelves on the left. I grabbed a couple of these adjustable closet rods from Home Depot and hung them on the right side. They were really easy to install (I did it myself!) and the fact that they were adjustable by sliding meant I didn’t have to cut anything. There is no light in the closet and I took this picture with my phone so it’s really grainy but hopefully you can get the jist.Both of the girls clothes hang on the top rod and Seb and Gianna’s are on the bottom. I grabbed a regular-sized (vs. kid-sized) hanger to determine how deep I wanted the rods. I hung them so that the hanger almost touched that back wall. Height-wise, I hung the top rod as high as I could to be able to still reach and left enough room between the two rods for the girls’ longest dresses to barely hang past the lower rod. That left enough room on the floor still to fit a bin full of the next-sizes-up clothes for Gianna. I like them in the closet instead of the attic since she goes through sizes like mad.

Let’s slide over to the shelves on the opposite side. If we owned this house, we’d have made some custom shelves like Amy did but instead, I took apart the closet organizer we had so that only the shelves stood and slid those right into the side of the closet.

They’re not a perfect fit by any means (they’re about eight inches too short and definitely don’t go as high as I’d like) but they didn’t require spending anymore money and they fit everything I need them too – humidifier, luggage bags, the green fabric boxes holding the girls school uniforms, and baskets full of swim suits and cooler weather gear.

That hamper holds dirty clothes and the mirror (made over long ago) is just to spice things up. Another thing I’d do if we owned is paint the closet. Right now it just seems frivolous since it’s not really seen and our time here is limited.

So, my goal for week four was to get this closet reorganized and, while the actual closet is done, the dining room is holding those bins and bags of clothes, which I went through last week. I’ve been paring down the kids’ clothes over the past several months – letting go of most of the stuff they’ve outgrown and only keeping a few special pieces in case a baby makes its way into the fam in the future. We don’t have the space anymore to keep bins full of outgrown clothes (we literally had about five extra large bins stored in our old attic) nor do I want to have to make room for that much stuff. Over the past few years, I’ve realized how much excess we had in the way of clothes because I’ve seen how much the kids actually wear and need. Let me tell ya, society/social media/Kardashians will tell you your kids need to have one of everything but that is just not true. Grab a few fun pieces, mix-and-match, and go clutter up your kids lives with experiences. They’re probably not going to remember what they wore when you took them to that uber fun place but they’ll remember what they did. ;)

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